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Contents contributed and discussions participated by Clay Burell

Clay Burell

Beyond School - 1 views

  • Clay Burell
     
    Use to argue against Euclid.
Clay Burell

kis21learning wiki / Must-Have Accounts for Read-Write Web - 0 views

  • Hint: use the same username and password you use for everything else (except your bank account).


    First, create a bookmark folder labeled HS Accounts in your bookmarks toolbar on Firefox:


    Firefox >


    Bookmarks >


    Bookmark this page >


    Click Expand Triangle (Right of "Create In")


    Bookmarks Toolbar >


    New Folder >


    Web 2.0 >


    Add


     



    Here we go. A Baker's Dozen Bookmarks:

    • Clay Burell
       
      If I could be any kind of artist or performer, my fantasy would be to become a __________________ (ex., writer, photographer, painter, filmmaker, musician, talk-show host, comedian, journalist, etc.).
    • Join the KIS 1:1 laptop Diigo group so we can play with the million life-sa ving ways you can use this for yourself or your classes.
    •  Install the Firefox Diigo toolbar.
    • Restart Firefox.
    • Click "install"
    • On Diigo Toolbar, click dropdown triangle > SHOW ANNOTATIONS > GROUPS > 1:1 Laptop
    • See anything different?  Hover over it
    • Click "install"
    • On Diigo Toolbar, click dropdown triangle > SHOW ANNOTATIONS > GROUPS > 1:1 Laptop
    • See anything different?  Hover over it
Clay Burell

Screencast-O-Matic - 0 views

  • Clay Burell
     
    Create screencasts online.  Java-based.  Still in beta, but a great tool.  Resolution much higher than what I've been able to achieve with SnapzPro on my Mac.  And yes, it's cross-platform!  So far, you can't embed, though you can download as Quicktime, upload to Google Video or YouTube, etc, and embed from there, I guess--which might cause the same fuzzy resolution I've been fighting with SnapzPro all along.  iShowU, by the way, is a new Mac screencast software--about USD $20--that is far superior to  SnapzPro, if you want to buy software for your Mac.

    Screencast-o-matic seems  eager to add features and improve its  service, so it's definitely something to watch.  Thanks to Jeff Utecht and Chris Craft for the tip.

Clay Burell

Flixn.com | Video Everywhere - 0 views

  • Clay Burell
     
    Thanks to Patrick Higgins (who thanks Will Richardson) for this find:  this might be just the peer feedback tool we're looking for for the 1001 Tales writing workshop.  It requires a webcam, but otherwise is dead easy to embed--easier than Yackpack, and video added to boot.  (And check out the film debut of Patrick's Audrey, who can't be more than four moons old, on his demo.  Priceless, Patrick.)

    I'm seeing this as a way for students to give peer feedback by reading their flat classroom peers' works aloud into their webcam, pausing for commentary all the while.  At a couple stages in the Flat World Tales, we had students podcast themselves reading their own works, then listen and reflect about what they heard.  Otherwise, no audio-video was used; instead, students only wrote their feedback on each other's wiki page.  My students said this took them upwards of a half hour per story feedback.

    So Flixn might be faster, easier, and more effective--and more social.  Some of the student feedback expressed regret that they could not see or hear their flat classroom partners this time around.

    I'm really liking this....Chris Watson, are you listening? 

Clay Burell

BlogTalkRadio - 0 views

  • Clay Burell
     
    One possible web 2.0 alternative to Skype conference call restrictions.  Web-based conference call recording.  Don't know if it's free.
Clay Burell

STRONG AND WEAK VERBS - 0 views

  • Clay Burell
     
    Good exercise at end: simply underline all "to be" and "to have" usages in your draft, and decide how many you can improve.
Clay Burell

Poynter Online - Writing Tool #7: Dig for the Concrete and Specific - 0 views

  • Clay Burell
     
    This Poynter Online series is wonderful.  Though a journalism site, it alludes to master writers constantly.
Clay Burell

Writing, Clear and Simple - Notebook - Told you so: Use active voice! - 0 views

  • Clay Burell
     
    Re: Passive voice.
Clay Burell

Language and grammar tips for writing - 0 views

  • Clay Burell
     
    Short.  Good.
Clay Burell

weak verb - 0 views

  • Clay Burell
     
    Man, Yale can be dull.
Clay Burell

Poynter Online - Writing Tool #39: The Voice of Verbs - 0 views

  • Clay Burell
     
    Excellent Steinbeck example of a well-chosen passive verb.  Nice Ackerman example of copulae ("is" sentences) as good writing.  Nice, subtle lesson.
Clay Burell

Poynter Online - Writing Tool #3: Beware of Adverbs - 0 views

  • At their best, adverbs spice up a verb or adjective. At their worst, they express a meaning already contained in it:


    • "The blast completely destroyed the church office."
    • "The cheerleader gyrated wildly before the screaming fans."
    • "The accident totally severed the boy's arm."
    • "The spy peered furtively through the bushes."
    • The blast destroyed the church office.
    • The cheerleader gyrated before the screaming fans.
    • The accident severed the boy's arm.
    • The spy peered through the bushes.
    • Look through the newspaper for any word that ends in �ly. If it is an adverb, delete it with your pencil and read the new sentence aloud.
    • Do the same for your last three essays, stories, or papers. Circle the adverbs, delete them, and decide if the new sentence is better or worse.
Clay Burell

Lars Eighner's Homepage Writers' Workshop FAQ: Q. How can I identify weak verbs? - 0 views

  • Like all parts of speech, verbs are strongest when
    they are precise and concrete. For verbs, "concrete" is the quality
    of expressing real movement in the real world--or in fiction, the
    world we accept as real. In other words, strong verbs tell us
    exactly what is done and that is a real action.


    Verbs have a natural hierarchy, from strongest to weakest:


    • Doing (strongest)
    • Saying
    • Thinking or feeling
    • Being done to
    • Being (weakest)
    • Jim was sick.
    • Jim was being made sick by the clam dip.
    • Jim felt sick.
    • "I feel sick," Jim said.
    • Jim vomited on the Persian rug.

    The strongest verbs express actions in the real
    world. The weaker verbs express less real-world action. At the
    bottom are the being verbs which express either no action or very
    little.


    As an exercise, revise a couple of pages (about
    500 words) of your writing so that verbs which are not already
    doing or saying verbs are raised at least one level in the
    hierarchy wherever this is possible.

  • Clay Burell
     
    Nice, conversational hierarchy of verbs with an application exercise after.
Clay Burell

Phil Turner : The business of writing - 0 views

  • We’ve been talking about how to write in the business world. Here’s my starting point:


    "Short sentences, short paragraphs, active verbs, authenticity, compression, clarity and immediacy."


    Recognise this? It’s Ernest Hemingway. It’s the first thing he was taught as a young reporter on the Kansas City Star. He later said: "Those were the best rules I ever learned for the business of writing. I've never forgotten them."


    It’s easy to forget ourselves that when Hemingway was writing like this it was near-revolutionary. This style of writing is almost commonplace today. He did away with all the florid prose of the Victorian era and replaced it with a lean, clear prose based on action rather than reflection.


    Nowadays if people ask me to recommend a book on business writing, I give them a copy of The Old Man and the Sea. Just 100 pages. Not a word is wasted. It’s written for a 12-year-old and yet it won Hemingway the Nobel Prize.


    Communicators in business can learn a lot from Hemingway.



  • Clay Burell
     
    Love the businessman who also loves great writing.
Clay Burell

Fencing With the Fog: Weak Verbs and Pansy Words - 0 views

  • Clay Burell
     
    Interesting screenwriter rant on verbs and nouns.  Funny thing is, most of her verbs are weak.
Clay Burell

Collaborative Writing - 0 views


  • Based on the results of the study conducted by Ede and Lunsford
    [39], seven organizational patterns for collaborative authoring were
    identified. These patterns are:

    1. the team plans
      and outlines the task, then each writer prepares his/her part and the group
      compiles the individual parts, and revises the whole document as needed;
    2. the team plans and outlines the writing task, then one member prepares
      a draft, the team edits and revises the draft;
    3. one member of the team
      plans and writes a draft, the group revises the draft;
    4. one person
      plans and writes the draft, then one or more members revises the draft
      without consulting the original authors;
    5. the group plans and writes
      the draft, one or more members revise the draft without consulting the
      original authors;
    6. one person assigns the tasks, each member completes
      the individual task, one person compiles and revises the document;

    7. one dictates, another transcribes and edits. Results from the study
      indicated that the percentage of writing groups that use these methods often
      or very often range from 3% (method 5) to 31% (method 3).
    • Clay Burell
       
      Interesting research on collaborative writing models.  Obvious relevance to classroom wiki workshop designs and roles.

  • Survey one, which was administered to a large group of writers
    (approximately 800), provides information on the amount of time spent on the
    various phases of the writing process. The results show that generating
    ideas (14%), note-taking (13%), organizational planning (13%), drafting
    (32%), revising (15%), editing (13%) contribute to the total writing
    process. Ede and Lunsford [39] also examined co


    llaborative authoring and the results
    indicates that the level of satisfaction in the group writing process is influenced by eight items:

    • the degree to which goals are articulated and shared;
    • the degree of openness and mutual respect;
    • the degree of control the writers have over the text;
    • the degree to which writers can respond to others who modify the text;
    • the way in which credit (directly or indirectly) is acknowledged;
    • the presence of an agreed upon procedure for managing conflicts and
      resolving disputes;
    • the number and types of (bureaucratic) constraints imposed on the authors--
      deadlines, technical/legal requirements, etc., and;
    • the status of the project within the organization.
    • Clay Burell
       
      Again, interesting for wiki-based projects.  The percentages of total project time taken by each phase of the writing process is especially relevant to the student-created wiki textbook project I'm launching in my history class this week.
Clay Burell

1-to-1 Computing :: A Measure of Success : February 2007 : THE Journal - 0 views

  • WHEN TEXAS' TECHNOLOGY
    IMMERSION PROJECT (TIP)
    began in the spring of 2004, a grant
    from the US Department of Education
    allowed a parallel project to launch—
    eTxTIP—to evaluate and measure the
    success of the program, which equips
    middle school students in high-risk,
    high-need areas with laptops.
    • Clay Burell
       
      "High-risk students" shouldn't throw us off to the wider application of this research.  Seen in a non-economic (class) sense, "high-risk" can apply also to students of sub-standard literacy scores on external, norm-referenced tests like the SAT and so forth.  So this applies, I would argue, to any students whose academic literacy scores fall below the norm--which makes this especially relevant to international schools and schools with high numbers of non-native English speakers.
  • According to Givens, "The first-year report showed an
    increase in technical proficiency, engagement between the students
    and the teachers, a spike in parental involvement, and
    greater communication between the school and the home."
    She says the second-year report is close to completion.
    • Clay Burell
       
      This is definitely true in my case regarding the "increase in. . . engagemennt between the students and the teachers," though less so with parent involvement.  I just sent a parent letter home with students explaining our web-logging "Writing Across the Curriculum, Writing Across the Years" program, and hope this will increase parent involvement.
  • Data is beginning to come in on several of the first 1-to-1
    initiatives that were launched three or more years ago, an adequate
    time frame for obtaining measurable results. Just as
    expected, formal analysis shows that students are learning
    more through this new, collaborative instruction that opens the
    doors of communication and takes education beyond the classroom
    and into the community at large. Anecdotal success—
    accounts of positive transformations in the classroom from
    students, teachers, administrators, and parents—only serves to
    bolster the formal evaluations of these programs, which for
    most, were mandated when the programs were implemented.
    • Clay Burell
       
      Again, personal experience in our classroom collaboration with students in Denver and Honolulu bears out the claim that "students are learning more through this new, collaborative instruction that opens the doors of communication and takes education beyond the classroom and into the community at large."  While there are still improvements to be made in our method of collaboration--only natural, since this is our first attempt, and we're learning as we go--the learning that is taking place is clearly richer, more authentic, and more multi-faceted than traditional, "walled classoom" writiing workshops of the past.  It will only improve as we teachers continue working out the bugs.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The Maine Learning Technology Initiative (MLTI), which
    began five years
    ago and provides
    each seventh-grade
    student in the state
    with a laptop, has
    also been undergoing
    evaluation, with two groups working in tandem to measure
    its success, says Bette Manchester, director of special projects
    for the Maine Department of Education. The first group, the
    Center for Education Policy, Applied Research, and Evaluation
    at the University of Southern Maine, looks at how the
    technology is being used, viewed, and accepted at the state's
    middle schools. Among the findings, which can be found
    here, the CEPARE report states:


    "There is a growing body of evidence that Maine's Learning
    Technology Initiative is impacting teachers, students, and
    learning in many positive ways:


    • Teachers are more effectively helping children achieve
      Maine's state learning standards.
    • Students are more motivated to learn, are learning more,
      and learning it more deeply.
    • Students are acquiring 21st-century skills.
    • The 1-to-1 laptop program is bringing about positive
      change in the acquisition of knowledge."

    Machester says the state continues to work with CEPARE
    to measure results at particular schools, noting that the center
    evaluates schools individually rather than the program as
    a whole. "We chose not to just look at statewide student
    achievement," she says, "because that doesn't tell the whole
    story. Plus, doing those types of assessments is very, very
    expensive."

    • Clay Burell
       
      The biggest limitations to our own initiative are these:
      1. students don't have their own laptops, which limits intstruction to availability of laptop carts on any given day.
      2. the laptops the school provides do not contain the software required for optimal student production of digital work (frankly, the iLife audio, video, teleconferencing, and multimedia suiite)
      3. classroom time management is negatively affected by set-up and breakdown time to remove and return laptops to the carts every  class.
      I include the rest of the article in case it has relevance for anyone else.


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